Church, Inquisition and other matters

Church and Inquisition

Sir: Elisabeth Taylor’s essay “The Infodemic and the Rise of a Modern Inquisition” (October 2021) warns of the real dangers posed to the Open Society by the orchestrated actions of entities such as the World Health Organisation, various NGOs, pharmaceutical conglomerates, governments and their health bureaucracies, Big Tech, Big Media, assorted philanthropic organisations and think-tanks. She delineates the co-ordinated efforts of a supra-national “global health establishment” to control COVID-19 pandemic information flows.

However, it was disconcerting in the extreme to see Dr Taylor, a PhD in Medieval History, likening this sinister “global health machine” to the medieval Church and the Inquisition.

Despite the shortcomings and foibles of its individual members, the story of the medieval Church is one of triumph. Building on foundations laid in Athens and Jerusalem, it gave the world a fruitful harmony of human reason and divine revelation. “What did the medieval Church give us?” I hear Elisabeth Taylor ask. Well, what about capitalism, which began in the monasteries and flowered in Venice, Genoa, Florence and Milan from the twelve to the fourteenth centuries (well before the Protestant Reformation); what about the founding of the great European universities, Paris and Bologna in the middle of the twelfth century and Oxford and Cambridge around 1200; what about Gothic art and architecture; what about the theological development of the moral equality of individuals before God, property rights and just limits to the powers of kings and sovereign states? Rodney Stark exhaustively illustrates all this in The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism and Western Success (2006).

Apropos the Spanish Inquisition, one needs to understand this in the context of the more than seven-hundred-year Reconquista which finally pushed the Muslim invaders out of the formerly Christian Visigothic kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula. For anyone harbouring romantic dreams of the multicultural paradise of “al-Andalus” I can strongly recommend Darío Fernández-Morera’s The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain (2016).

The best and most recent scholarship has found that the Inquisition was not nearly as harsh as previously portrayed and the number of people brought before it was far, far smaller than the exaggerated accounts that were formerly accepted. See Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision (1999) and Edward M. Peters, Inquisition (1989).

James Orrock

Voluntary Assisted Dying

Sir: In “Resisting Euthanasia’s Culture of Death” (September 2021), Paul Collits claims, “Euthanasia is merely a manifestation of the evil that men do.” He admits that five Australian states have legalised voluntary assisted dying (VAD) and the others will likely shortly follow. He is correct to link VAD with other cultural changes including same-sex marriage, legalised abortion and transgender rights, among others.

Culture is the set of beliefs and behaviours which the members of a group embrace and practice. And there is no doubt, our culture has changed—tattoos which years ago were limited to sailors’ forearms now adorn young people’s arms and bodies, go up their necks and occasionally onto their faces. Healthy young people, both males and females, now sometimes seek surgical sterilisation as a stepping-stone to a desired childless lifestyle.

Collits looks for support to a recent tome, To Kill or Not to Kill: Euthanasia in a Society with a Cultural Death Wish, by retired South Australian Catholic priest and academic John Fleming. In the foreword to this book, William Tighe writes of “a calculated attempt to overthrow the ethical religious foundations on which Western Civilisation was built”. It is true, the general population no longer chooses to be governed by “the ethical religious foundations” of another time.

Collits makes the vague claim that significant problems have emerged in the provision of VAD in Belgium, where euthanasia was legalised on May 28, 2002. This claim is often made by opponents, but it is incorrect. He describes the polls which have shown the majority of Australians support VAD as “dubious”, without providing any evidence.

When an individual is dying and suffering, it is reasonable and humane for them to be assisted with their dying and avoidance of suffering.

Saxby Pridmore

A Scrubbing Brush

Sir: I have no time for Mr Andrews and his gang of Red Shirts in Leninburg, his deals with the Xi regime, narcissistic waffle and grandstanding worthy of a Lukašenko. The situation on the streets of Leninburg is of his own making. 

It is doubtful that the situation will be ameliorated by Christmas, and Victoria’s citizens are likely to face a long summer of discontent. State governments will quite rightly try to protect their citizens against further outbreaks, even after an 80 per cent coverage of the adult and youth population is reached, and state borders will remain closed to us. Federal authorities will be watching for new and virulent mutations, and state governments will try to maintain civil order. 

When either Victoria’s medical officer, Professor Sutton, or the ABC’s science correspondent, Dr Swan, speak on this matter, they clearly explain the technical background and physiological effects of this deadly virus. But there are those who have forgotten the basic science required or have deliberately closed their ears. Also, they are frightened of the unknown, and that makes people vulnerable to all sorts of rabble-rousers, snake-oil salesmen and sewer rats. 

One understands the need for societal order, and equally the need for disparate points of view to be aired and debated openly. However, it is clear that there has been a breakdown in our civil structures on two counts. 

First, within our schools: surely, an understanding of the basics of chemistry and biology, at least until the completion of Year 10, is essential to follow the facts about the nature of the Wuhan-Covid virus. Likewise, a firm grasp of English is needed to be able to engage in the wider community. If there is a good time to revisit the middle years curriculum, it is now. 

Second, within our state structures: certainly, force must be used against the rent-a-riot crowd, but to dress the police in black is not wise, and to use pepper spray directly onto the face of a protester already knocked down is merely brutal. VicPol has become indistinguishable from the Belarussian milicija! 

There are no quick solutions to the present disgraceful situation. But as a first step, the various states’ parliaments must be made to face their electorates, as must Canberra. A scrubbing brush must be applied to our civil and political structures, and to our schools. 

Edward Reilly 

1930s Dance Music

Sir: I have just read with huge enjoyment Ken Gannicott’s piece in the September issue about dance music of the 1930s. I too am a fan, but the 1920s and 1940s have plenty also to offer in popular music.

I wonder whether the author is familiar with Dave Rentz’s FM radio program Hit Parade of Yesterday, which features music of the 1920s and 1930s including many dance bands and singers, from Maurice Chevalier to Bunny

Berrigan and of course plenty of Al Bowlly and early Bing Crosby. It has been running since 1978 and is available on many FM stations around the country.

Ken Gannicott’s informative essay reminded me of an interview with Laurence Olivier who, when asked what was his favourite poem in English, mischievously came out with this: 

There was a young actress named Gloria,
Who was had by Sir Gerald du Maurier,
Jack Hylton, Jack Payne,
Sir Gerald again,
And the band of the Waldorf Astoria.

I guess he was a fan of 1930s dance bands too.

Peter Jeffrey

Correction:

In Raymond Burns’s article in the September issue he wrote about the widespread use of Anh Do’s book The Happiest Refugee in schools. In fact it is The Little Refugee, the picture-book version of Anh Do’s book, which is being used in secondary schools.